SecondsOut Boxing News - Legends Update - The Sonny Liston Questions The Sonny Liston Questions By Paul Upham From September 25, 1962 when he won the title from Floyd Patterson until February 25, 1964 when he was stopped by Muhammad Ali aka Cassius Clay, Charles Sonny Liston was world heavyweight champion, making one successful defence against Patterson in a rematch on July 22, 1963. That we know for sure. There are many things we don’t know about Sonny Liston, 50-4 (39), and two of the biggest questions surround his performance in the rematch loss to Muhammad Ali on May 25, 1965 and his suspicious death on December 30, 1970. The night of the Ali rematch will go down in boxing history as one of the most peculiar and bizarre boxing contests ever. Everybody has a theory, said boxing agent and historian Don Majeski. People have said everything, that it was fixed by the Muslims, fixed by the Mafia. It’s like the Kennedy assassination of boxing. Ali-Liston II is the Kennedy assassination of boxing.

For the 2,434 in attendance and those watching live on television, the question was how many people really saw the Ali punch which dropped Liston to the canvas in the first round and did it come from behind the grassy knoll? For me it is difficult to look at the rematch in Lewiston, Maine against Muhammad Ali and say there wasn’t something odd about that fight, anchor punch or not, says SecondsOut’s own Contributing Editor Patrick Kehoe. As Jimmy Cannon said, ‘I saw that punch and it couldn’t have crushed a grape’. Well, I didn’t see that punch. I can only see it in the footage that exists. As anyone knows who has seen the film, Liston’s back is to you, so you don’t actually see the blow and how it landed. But that’s not a knockout punch to me. Legendary television broadcaster the Colonel Bob Sheridan is convinced that an outside influence saw Liston take a dive. We didn’t see the real Sonny Liston in the Ali fights. He was mobbed connected, he was a hitman supposedly and if he wasn’t a hitman, he was a leg breaker. He was a tough, bad boy, said Sheridan.

With his connection to the mob, a lot of people talk about whether his fights with Ali were fixed. The answer to that question is uneqvivocably ‘no’. They weren’t fixed. Ali would not have gone for it any way. In the first fight he was Cassius Clay. He believed in his mind that he was the ‘greatest’ and he was out to prove it and he would not have gone for it, neither would have (trainer) Angelo Dundee. But the problem then was that Cassius Clay had already been approached by the Muslims (the Nation of Islam) and the Muslims totally intimidated Sonny. I don’t have first hand knowledge that they threatened him, but I do know first hand that Sonny Liston was scared to death of them. If that played any factor in the shoulder injury in Miami or the fact that he stayed down when he got clipped by a short crisp punch that he should have been able to absorb in Lewiston, I don’t know. But that’s what I believe in my heart and my mind and with my experience of over 10,000 fights and all the world title fights that I have broadcast. I believe in my heart that Sonny Liston was intimidated by the Muslims.

The Muslims at that time intimidated a lot of people. Majeski has a totally different theory on what happened in the fight, pointing to the physical condition of Liston in both title fights with Ali and his decline as a fighter that went unnoticed by many people through his lack of activity in the ring. I think he quit on his feet like he did in their first fight. The first fight was similar to the Duran-Leonard II fight, where Liston was getting beat and he saw he was going to get embarrassed and he basically said, ‘screw this guy, I’m not going to let him embarrass me’, and he just quit. If you look at the history of Liston going into the second Ali fight, in December 1961 Liston goes one round with a fighter named Albert Westphal after stopping Howard King in March of that year in three rounds. That’s four rounds of boxing in the year, said Majeski. In September 1962 he knocks out Floyd Patterson in one round, that’s five rounds of boxing. Then he trains eight weeks for the Patterson rematch, which was meant to be in Miami, but he injures himself and the fight is called off.

He goes back into training again and they fight in Las Vegas in July 1963 and he knocks Patterson out in one round. Between March 1961 and his first fight with Muhammad Ali in February 1964, Liston had exactly six rounds of boxing. Between October 1960 and February 1964, Ali had 19 fights. Liston was probably over the hill when he won the heavyweight title, but you couldn’t tell because he had scored two one round knockouts over Patterson. Liston had three one round knockouts going into the first Ali fight and he is no shape in the first fight figuring that he was going to blow him out. He loses the first fight and they train for a rematch in Boston and Ali gets a hernia and that fight is called off. He trains for two phantom fights and between March 1961 and May 1965, Liston has had thirteen rounds of boxing and dissipates terribly during that time. There is a picture of Liston standing with his back to the camera and you see these two big rolls of fat around him. You say this is a guy who wasn’t in the best shape.

He had no boxing for nearly four or five years. Liston was an older fighter and in that time I think his ability had slipped. When it comes to the circumstances of Liston’s death, Sheridan has no doubt that it was not through a drug overdose as is the official record. My theory was he was absolutely killed by the Mob and I’ll tell you why, he says. I know for a fact if ever I saw two athletes that were afraid of a needle, one of them was Sonny Liston and the other was Muhammad Ali. It was common in those days for fighters to have their hands injected before commissioners watched the wrapping. Guys who were heavy punchers injured their hands in the early portion of fights so they injected them to get through the fights. Liston and Ali would not have their hands injected. Now 25 years later, you can’t convince me a guy who was scared to death of a needle, would have any type of recreational drug habit that would involve injection of heroin. Sonny Liston was a ‘juicer’, he liked to drink. He talked a lot when he did drink. He had notorious connections with the Mob and maybe he was talking too much when he drank a lot.

It was around New Years when he was found dead in his house here in Las Vegas and his wife just happened to be away. It doesn’t add up that Liston would have been a recreational heroin user. It doesn’t add up to me at all. My theory is that he was killed by the Mob for reasons I don’t know. Paul Upham Muhammad Ali's life in pictures - BBC Sport BBC Sport Muhammad Ali's life in pictures 4 Jun Read more about sharing. Muhammad Ali was born Cassius Marcellus Clay in Louisville, Kentucky on 17 January 1942. He took up boxing at the age of 12 and went on to win light-heavyweight gold at the 1960 Olympics in Rome. Clay turned professional in October 1960 aged 18 and won 18 straight fights before travelling to London in June 1963 for his first paid bout overseas, where he predicted a fifth-round knockout of local hero Henry Cooper.

Cooper floored Clay in round four with 'Enery's 'Ammer' only for the brash American visitor to deliver on his word and force a stoppage in his chosen round in front of more than 55,000 people at Wembley Stadium. Clay's first shot at a world title came in February 1964, when he took on formidable world champion Sonny Liston. The brooding Liston predicted: "I think I'm gonna have to hurt that boy bad." Dismissed by most boxing experts before the fight, Clay put in an exhilarating performance in Miami, forcing Liston to quit on his stool before the sixth round and winning the world heavyweight title at the age of 22. Clay's victory over Liston was, and still is, one of the biggest upsets in boxing history. Clay, understandably, was even more verbose than usual: "I am the greatest! I am the greatest!

I'm the king of the world!" Ali - who announced his membership of the Nation of Islam and adopted his new name following the first Liston fight - made his first world title defence against Liston, "that ugly old bear", in Lewiston, Maine in May 1965. Ali won the rematch with Liston after knocking him down in the first minute of the first round. To this day, many believe Liston threw the fight, but Ali always maintained it was not a so-called 'Phantom Punch'. In November 1965 Ali defended his title against former champion Floyd Patterson, winning via a 12th-round stoppage. Patterson had been particularly scathing on the subject of Ali's politics and religion. Ali returned to London to fight Henry Cooper for a second time in May 1966 at Arsenal's former home Highbury. The British fans, who had not taken to Ali the first time around, were now enthralled by his every move. Angelo Dundee, seen strapping his charge's hands before the Cooper fight, was in Ali's corner almost from the start of his professional career. "There's only one Cassius Clay," said Dundee.

"Thank God." Ali stopped Cooper in six rounds after opening up a deep gash over the Englishman's left eye. On Cooper's death in 2011, Ali said: "I will miss my old friend - he was a great fighter and a gentleman." Ali's eighth title defence came against Ernie Terrell in February 1967. Ali taunted Terrell, who had called Ali by his birth name in the lead-up, for 15 rounds, repeatedly asking: "What's my name, Uncle Tom?" After only one more dazzling defence, against Zora Folley, Ali was stripped of his title having refused induction into the US Army fighting in Vietnam. It would be more than three years before Ali returned to the ring. Ali's first defeat came against new world champion Joe Frazier at Madison Square Garden in March 1971. Dubbed simply 'The Fight', it was the first time two undefeated heavyweight world champions had shared the same ring. Ali won a rematch with Frazier but arguably his finest hour came later in 1974 when he fought George Foreman in the 'Rumble in the Jungle'.

Ali spent eight rounds leaning back on the ropes, a tactic he called 'rope-a-dope'. But Ali sprung from the ropes at the end of round eight and floored Foreman with a stunning combination, becoming only the second man in history to regain the world heavyweight title, at the ripe old age of 32. Ali beat Britain's Joe Bugner in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in June 1975. Four months later Ali sealed another famous victory over his great rival Joe Frazier in the 'Thrilla in Manila' - "the closest thing to death that I could feel", said Ali. A pitiful Ali lost his title to Leon Spinks in 1978 before regaining it from Spinks later the same year. He announced his retirement nine months later, only to return to challenge new champion Larry Holmes in 1980. After being defeated by Holmes, Ali had one more fight, a defeat by Trevor Berbick, before retiring at the age of 40. His departure left a huge gulf in heavyweight boxing that was only filled by Mike Tyson's arrival in the mid-1980s.

Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson's Syndrome in 1984 but dealt with his condition with courage and dignity. In 1996, Ali was watched by a worldwide audience of billions as he lit the Olympic cauldron in Atlanta. Also in Atlanta, Ali was re-presented with his gold medal from the 1960 Rome Olympics - Ali claimed he threw the original into the Ohio River after being refused service at a whites-only restaurant, although the story is disputed. The turn of the new millennium saw Ali garlanded with numerous accolades - BBC viewers voted him Sports Personality of the Century, the same year Britain's heavyweight king Lennox Lewis scooped the main award. Ali's daughter, Laila, took up boxing at the age of 15, turned professional in 1999 and beat Joe Frazier's daughter, Jackie Frazier-Lyde, in 2001. Laila won the super-middleweight title in 2002 before retiring in 2007. In 2001 a biopic - Ali - is released, starring Hollywood actor Will Smith.

Ali continues to flit in and out of the public eye, rubbing shoulders all over the globe with the great and good, despite his deteriorating condition. Ali, seen here at a charity event in his name in 2011, cuts an increasingly frail figure entering his 70th year. "I think maybe my Parkinson's is God's way of reminding me what is important," is his philosophical take on his life. Muhammad Ali (second right) attends the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics alongside the likes of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon (second left) and distance runner Haile Gebrselassie (far left). Share this page Muhammad Ali vs. Sonny Liston (2nd meeting) - BoxRec Muhammad Ali vs.

Sonny Liston (2nd meeting) From BoxRec Jump to: navigation , search 1965-05-25 : Sonny Liston 215¼ lbs lost to Muhammad Ali 206 lbs by KO at 2:12 in round 1 of 15 Location: Central Maine Civic Center, Lewiston, Maine, USA 4 Articles The Build-Up Shortly after Muhammad Ali—then Cassius Clay—upset Sonny Liston to win the World Heavyweight Championship on February 25, 1964, it was discovered that the two boxers had a contract which gave Inter-Continental Promotions, Inc., a firm organized to promote Liston's fights, the right to promote Ali's first fight as champion—if he should beat Liston—and pick his opponent (Liston, of course). This was in a second contract, kept secret and not part of the main fight contract. It was phrased as it was because the World Boxing Association did not allow fight contracts with rematch clauses. On August 21, 1963, the WBA voted to suspend any member state approving a contract with a return bout clause.

The regulation was inspired by the contract Liston was forced to sign to get a title shot against Floyd Patterson , whom Liston would twice knockout in one round. Delegates described it as the worst ever seen in the boxing business. Patterson was not only guaranteed a rematch, but retained the right to dictate the terms. Gordon B. Davidson, an attorney for the group sponsoring Ali, said, "We felt we would be better advised not to have a guaranteed rematch clause. We felt this was more in the spirit of the WBA rules than a direct rematch, which was clearly outlawed." He agreed that it was "subterfuge." When Ali and Liston signed to fight a rematch, the WBA voted unanimously to strip Ali of the title and drop Liston from its rankings. However, the World Boxing Council , the New York State Athletic Commission and The Ring magazine continued to recognize Ali as champion. Pressed by the WBA—which included every U.S. state except California, Nevada and New York—state boxing commissions throughout the nation were reluctant to license a rematch between the two controversial fighters, and it was difficult to find a venue.

Ultimately, Massachusetts agreed to host the bout, which resulted in the suspension of the Massachusetts Boxing Commission by the WBA. The fight was set for November 16, 1964, at the Boston Garden. Liston was immediately established as a 13-5 favorite. However, three days before the fight, Ali suffered an incarcerated inguinal hernia. He was rushed to Boston City Hospital and underwent immediate surgery. "It was such a marvelously developed stomach, I hated to slice it up," said one of the attending physicians. The fight was rescheduled for May 25, 1965. But as it approached, there were fears that the promoters were tied to organized crime, and Massachusetts officials, most notably Suffolk County District Attorney Garrett Byrne, began to have second thoughts. Byrne sought an injunction blocking the fight in Boston, claiming Inter-Continental Promotions was promoting the fight without a Massachusetts license. Inter-Continental said local veteran Sam Silverman was the promoter. On May 7, backers of the rematch ended the court battle by pulling the fight out of Boston. The promoters needed a new location quickly, whatever the size, to rescue their closed circuit television commitment around the country. Governor John H.

Reed of Maine stepped forward, and within a few hours, the promoters had a new site: Lewiston, Maine, a mill town with a population of about 41,000 located 140 miles north of Boston. Inter-Continental obtained a permit and made an arrangement to work with local promoter Sam Michael. The venue selected was St. Dominic's Hall, a junior hockey rink. Lewiston was the smallest city to host a heavyweight title bout since Jack Dempsey fought Tommy Gibbons in Shelby, Montana (population 3,000) in 1923. It remains the only heavyweight title fight held in the state of Maine. The atmosphere surrounding the fight was tense and sometimes ugly, largely due to the repercussions of Ali's public embrace of Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam. Malcolm X, who had a public and bitter falling out with Elijah Muhammad, had been assassinated several months before the fight, and the men arrested for the slaying were members of the Nation of Islam. Rumors circulated that Ali, who had publicly snubbed Malcolm after his break with Elijah Muhammad, might be killed by Malcolm's supporters in retaliation.

The FBI took the threats seriously enough to post a 12-man, 24-hour guard around Ali. Liston's camp, in turn, claimed he had received a death threat from the Nation of Islam. The Fruit of Islam—the omnipresent, bow-tied paramilitary wing of the Nation of Islam—surrounding Ali only added to the sense of foreboding and hostility. Security for the fight was, for that time, unprecedented. Due to the remote location and the fear of violence, only 2,434 fans were present in the 4,900-seat arena, setting the all-time record for the lowest attendance for a heavyweight championship fight. The Fight The ending of the second Ali-Liston fight remains one of the most controversial in boxing history. Midway through the first round, Liston threw a left jab and Ali went over it with a fast right, knocking the former champion down. Liston went down on his back. He rolled over, got to his right knee and then fell on his back again. Many in attendance did not see Ali deliver the punch. The fight quickly descended into chaos.

Referee Jersey Joe Walcott , a former World Heavyweight Champion himself, had a hard time getting Ali to go to a neutral corner. Ali initially stood over his fallen opponent, gesturing and yelling at him, "Get up and fight, sucker!" When Walcott got back to Liston and looked at the knockdown timekeeper, Francis McDonough, to pick up the count, Liston had fallen back on the canvas. Walcott never did pick up the count. He said he could not hear McDonough, who did not have a microphone. Also, McDonough did not bang on the canvas or motion a number count with his fingers. McDonough, however, claimed Walcott was looking at the crowd and never at him. After Liston arose, Walcott wiped off his gloves. He then left the fighters to go over to the McDonough. "The timekeeper was waving both hands and saying, 'I counted him out—the fight is over,'" Walcott said after the fight.

" Nat Fleischer (editor of The Ring) was seating beside McDonough and he was waving his hands, too, saying it was over." Walcott then rushed back to the fighters, who had resumed boxing, and stopped the fight—awarding Ali a first-round knockout victory. The official time of the stoppage was announced as 1:00 into the first round, which was wrong. Liston went down at 1:44, got up at 1:56, and Walcott stopped the fight at 2:12. McDonough and Fleischer were also wrong in their interpretation of how the rules applied. Under the rules, the timekeeper is supposed to start the count at the time of a knockdown. The referee's duty is to get the boxer scoring the knockdown to a neutral corner, pick up the count from the timekeeper and continue it aloud for the knocked down boxer. Under the rules of the Maine Commission, the referee was authorized to stop his count if a boxer refused to go to the proper corner. "It might have been better if Walcott had stopped the count (by the knockdown timekeeper) until Clay went to the neutral corner and then started again," said Duncan MacDonald, a commission member.

"I did my job," Walcott said. "He (Ali) looked like a man in a different world. I didn't know what he might do. I thought he might stomp him or pick him up and belt him again." "If that bum Clay had gone to a neutral corner instead of running around like a maniac, all the trouble would have been avoided," McDonough said. He acknowledged that Walcott could have asked him to start the count again "after he got that wild man—Clay—back to a neutral corner, but he didn't, so that was that." Post-Fight Reactions When the fight ended, numerous fans booed and started yelling, "Fix!" Skeptics called the knockout blow "the phantom punch." Ali called it "the anchor punch." He said it was taught to him by comedian and film actor Stepin Fetchit, who learned it from Jack Johnson .

In the ring after the fight, Ali told closed circuit commentator Steve Ellis: "Didn't I tell the world that I had a surprise and if I told you the surprise, you would not come to the fight." However, Ali was unsure immediately after the fight as to whether or not the punch connected, as footage from the event shows Ali in the ring asking his entourage, "Did I hit him?" Ali told Nation of Islam minister Abdul Rahman that Liston "laid down" and Rahman replied, "No, you hit him." Rahman later said, "Ali hit him so fast, Ali didn't really know he hit him....and It took a long time before even he saw the punch he hit Sonny with." Years later, Ali told biographer Thomas Hauser : "The punch jarred him. It was a good punch, but I didn't think I hit him so hard he couldn't get up." "It was a good right-hand punch," Liston said after the fight. "It made me groggy.

I got to my knees but fell the second time because I was off balance....I could have got up, but I didn't hear the count." After the fight, George Chuvalo climbed through the ropes and shoved Ali, yelling, "Fix!" He was restrained, but later he said that he had seen Liston's eyes while the challenger was on the floor, and he knew that he was not in bad shape. "His eyes were darting from side to side like this," he said, darting his eyes from side to side. "When a fighter is hurt his eyes roll up." However, Dr. Carroll L. Witten, former Kentucky State Boxing Commissioner, who had studied the reactions of knocked out fighters, said, "Chuvalo is wrong. The side-to-side movement of eyes is commonly associated with temporary unconsciousness and is one of the first things you look for. It is called nystagmus." There were some at ringside who believed the fight was legitimate.

World Light Heavyweight Champion Jose Torres said, "It was a perfect punch." Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times wrote that it was "no phantom punch." And Tex Maule of Sports Illustrated wrote, "The blow had so much force it lifted Liston's left foot, upon which most of his weight was resting, well off the canvas." Hall of Fame announcer Don Dunphy was one of many who didn't believe the fight was on the level. "If that was a punch, I'll eat it," he said. "Here was a guy who was in prison and the guards use to beat him over the head with clubs and couldn't knock him down." But others contend that he wasn't the same Liston. Dave Anderson of the New York Times said Liston "looked awful" in his last workout before the fight. Liston's handlers secretly paid sparring partner Amos Lincoln an extra $100 to take it easy on him. Arthur Daley of the New York Times wrote that Liston's handlers knew he "didn't have it anymore." One ringside observer, former World Heavyweight Champion James J. Braddock , said the suspect Ali right hand merely finished up what an earlier punch had begun.

"I have a feeling that this guy (Ali) is a lot better than any of us gave him credit for," Braddock said. "It isn't the knockout punch that sticks in my mind as much as a punch he let go (earlier)....It was a right to Liston's jaw and it shook him to his shoetops. For all we know, it could have been the one that set up the knockout." Another former champion, Rocky Marciano , changed his view about the knockout punch after seeing videotape the next day. "I didn't think it was a powerful punch when I saw the fight from ringside," Marciano said. "Now (after seeing video) I think Clay, seeing the opening, snapped the punch the last six inches." Dave Anderson said he saw Liston in Las Vegas in 1967 and asked him what happened. "It wasn't that hard a punch, but it partially caught me off balance and when I got knocked down, I got mixed up because the referee never gave me a count," Liston said. "I was listening for a count.

That's the first thing you do, but I never heard a count because Clay never went to a neutral corner." Jerry Izenberg of the Newark Star-Ledger said Liston told him that he lost simply because "the timekeeper couldn't count." Mark Kram of Sports Illustrated said Liston told him: "That guy (Ali) was crazy. I didn't want anything to do with him. And the Muslims were coming up. Who needed that? So I went down. I wasn't hit." During a 1995 HBO documentary about Liston, trainer Johnny Tocco , who owned a boxing gym in Las Vegas, said he spoke with mobster John Vitale before the rematch and was told not to pay any attention to what he heard about the fight. He also told Tocco that he should be glad that he wasn't going to Lewiston. When Tocco asked why, Vitale told him that the fight was going to end in the first round. During the same documentary, former FBI agent William F. Roemer Jr.

said, "We learned that there very definitely had been a fix in that fight." He said Bernie Glickman, a boxing manager from Chicago with mob ties, claimed that while he was conversing with Liston and his wife before the fight, Liston's wife told the ex-champion that as long as he had to loss the fight, he should go down early to avoid any chance of getting hurt. In the wake of the controversial fight, there was an outcry by press and politicians for the abolition of boxing. Bills to ban the sport were planned in several state legislatures. A promoter in San Antonio apologized to his theater TV customers and, on the basis that they had been defrauded by a "shameful spectacle," donated his take to boys' clubs. The California legislature, in session, received a resolution calling for an investigation by the state attorney general to determine if its closed-circuit viewers had been fraudulently duped out of their money. For those who believe that Liston took a dive, there are a number of theories as to why, including: (1) The Mafia forced Liston to throw the fight as part of a betting coup.

(2) Liston bet against himself and took a dive because he owed money to the Mafia. (3) A couple of members of the Nation of Islam visited Liston's training camp and told Liston they would kill him if he won the rematch. (4) Author Paul Gallender claims that members of the Nation of Islam kidnapped Liston's wife, Geraldine, and his son, Bobby. Liston was told to lose the fight to Ali or he would never see his family again. (5) Liston was afraid that he would be accidentally shot by followers of Malcolm X as they tried to kill Ali in the ring. What really happened that day in Lewiston, Maine, is still debated to this day. Articles Floyd Patterson - Telegraph Obituaries Floyd Patterson Floyd Patterson, who died yesterday aged 71, not only became the youngest world heavyweight champion at 21; he also became the first fighter to regain the title when he knocked out Sweden's Ingemar Johansson in 1960 in the second of their three fights. Floyd Patterson Photo: AP Comments Furthermore, he was the first Olympic champion to go on and win boxing's richest prize.

Yet Patterson did not rank among the heavyweight greats, and his build seemed ill-suited to the division. Standing just 6ft and weighing a mere 13st 8lb, his short reach of 71 inches and stubby arms forced him to develop the unorthodox method of springing towards his opponents in order to land his blows. This high-risk strategy left Patterson open to counter-shots, and in his seven world title bouts he visited the canvas 16 times - most famously in 1959 when Johannson floored him on seven occasions during the first of their trilogy of fights. Patterson's modest size proved an insurmountable handicap against a rampaging Sonny Liston, who ended his world title reign by twice battering him to first-round defeats in 1962-63. "When you're knocked down with a good shot you don't feel pain,'' said Patterson. "Maybe it's like taking dope. It's like floating.

You feel you love everybody - like a hippie, I guess.'' Despite this vulnerability, Patterson was a thinking boxer of considerable speed and athleticism who made the most of his attributes and - until he ran into Liston - benefited hugely from the protection afforded by his caring manager Cus D'Amato, who was to take the teenage Mike Tyson under his wing a quarter of a century later. Judicious matchmaking saw Patterson build up an impressive winning streak in much the same way as some of the over-protected champions of today. After winning the world title with a fifth-round knockout of the 43-year-old Archie Moore in Chicago on November 30 1956, Patterson was fed a series of mediocre contenders such as Pete Rademacher, Roy Harris and Britain's Brian London, all of whom he beat with ease. "I say this now without shame,'' said Patterson in the run-up to his fight with Rademacher, an Olympic champion having his first paid bout.

"Line up a dozen amateurs and guarantee me $250,000 for fighting each one and I'll take them on one after another.'' He was born at Waco, North Carolina, on January 4 1935, one of 11 children in a poor family. Floyd was an insular and troubled child who became a persistent truant and petty thief. At 10 he was sent to a New York reform school where he discovered boxing. "I disliked school and ran away from home a lot,'' he remembered. "I spent most of my time hiding in subway tunnels.'' Patterson rapidly developed into a gifted amateur boxer who won the Golden Gloves title in 1951-52 before capturing the Olympic middleweight crown at Helsinki in 1952. Turning professional immediately, Patterson lost just one of his first 36 contests - a narrow points defeat against the fading Joey Maxim - and, much to the anger of some fight followers who felt he had not earned the right, secured a showdown with the veteran Moore for the title left vacant by Rocky Marciano's retirement.

Despite the 22-year age difference, Moore was favoured to win; yet it was his youthful adversary who emerged victorious with a fifth-round knockout. Having beaten Tommy "Hurricane'' Jackson in a rematch, Patterson duly saw off Rademacher, Harris and London, whose 11th-round defeat at Indianapolis on May 1 1959 led to a £ 2,000 fine by the British Boxing Board, which had opposed the match. Eight weeks later, Patterson was back in the ring for another seemingly routine defence against Johansson, whose smiling demeanour and playboy reputation suggested he would prove a pushover. Instead Johansson, who as an amateur had been disqualified from the 1952 Olympic final for "not trying'', pulled off a major upset at New York's Yankee Stadium on June 26 1959, halting a dazed Patterson in three rounds after decking him seven times. Patterson was so humiliated that he refused to leave his house for a month and, when a rematch was announced, trained with demonic intensity in an old barn in an attempt to regain his hunger. "Losing a championship was bad enough,'' he reflected.

"Losing it to a foreigner was even worse.'' When the pair met again, at New York's Polo Grounds on June 20 1960, a chastened American press tipped Johansson for victory, only for Patterson to even the score in spectacular fashion by knocking the champion cold with two big left hooks in round five to become the first heavyweight champion to regain the belt. A third fight was inevitable, and when the two great rivals clashed once more at Miami Beach on March 13 1961, Patterson overcame two first-round knockdowns to score a sixth-round triumph. The champion made one more defence, against the hopelessly outclassed Tom McNeeley, before putting his crown on the line against the fearsome Liston at Chicago's Comiskey Park on September 25 1962. Despite his time in reform school, Patterson's past bore no comparison with that of Liston, who had spent time in prison for armed robbery and assaulting a policeman. Liston, forced to wait a long time for his title shot, needed just 125 seconds to hammer Patterson into submission and end his five-year title reign.

Liston repeated the treatment in their rematch in Las Vegas on July 22 1963, which lasted just four seconds longer. Patterson the exemplary role model had been usurped by the ogre-like Liston. Patterson fought on, his thrilling clash with Canada's George Chuvalo the following year being judged 1965's fight of the year by Ring magazine. However, his attempt to wrest the heavyweight title from the newly-crowned Muhammad Ali in Las Vegas on November 22 1965 ended in a crushing 12th-round defeat. Patterson proceeded to knock out Henry Cooper at Wembley before suffering defeats against Jerry Quarry and Jimmy Ellis, the latter contest, in Stockholm, being for the World Boxing Association version of the title. After a two-year lay-off, Patterson managed a nine-fight winning streak, culminating in a rematch with Ali at New York's Madison Square Garden on September 20 1972. The fight, stopped in the seventh round due to Patterson's eye damage, proved his last, although he never officially announced his retirement. "I sort of just faded away,'' he recalled.

Patterson won 55 of his 64 fights, losing eight and drawing one. He continued to be involved with sport and founded an amateur club. Elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame, he also served as chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission for several years. Floyd Patterson is survived by his second wife and four children. This Week in Boxing History: Muhammad Ali vs Sonny Liston II Home Boxing This Week in Boxing History: Muhammad Ali vs Sonny Liston II This Week in Boxing History: Muhammad Ali vs Sonny Liston II Michael McCarthy May 27, 2014 5,083 Views What? Muhammad Ali v Sonny Liston II When? May 25th 1965 Where? Lewiston, Maine Background Charles “Sonny” Liston is one of boxing’s most mysterious characters, even his actual date of birth remains a mystery. He grew up in a world of poverty and discrimination and received no formal education. Like many young people who grow up in such circumstances, Liston resorted to a life of crime. By June 1950, Liston was serving time in prison for a series of robberies.

It was in prison that Liston discovered boxing and immediately took to it. After his release in 1952, he had a brief amateur career before turning professional. From his time in prison Liston was connected to organized crime, although he often appeared to have little choice in that matter. Liston was an ex-con and a boxer, and boxing at the time was still highly influenced by organized crime. He didn’t like being controlled by the mob but had to put up with it. These mob connections would prove a hindrance as his professional career proceeded. Liston was portrayed in the media as a monster and a criminal. Coupled with his size and brutal punching power, Liston was seen as the big black monster that white America both feared and hated. As Liston continued a string of impressive early knockout victories, he began to repeatedly call for a title shot against the champion, Floyd Patterson. His mob connections and his general unpopularity made it extremely difficult for Liston to get a much deserved shot. But by September 1962, the excuses had run out and Liston finally got his chance at the title. He would seize it in dramatic fashion.

After years of waiting for his chance, Liston would take just over 2 minutes to knockout Patterson and claim the title. The rematch with Patterson again would not get beyond a round with Liston once again crushing the former champ. In his second title defence, Liston would be against a young upstart from Louisville, Kentucky – the “Louisville Lip”, Cassius Clay. Muhammad Ali needs no introduction but when he first met Sonny Liston in the ring, he was still Cassius Clay. At the time of their first meeting in February 1964, few gave Clay a chance with most expecting a first round knockout. So confident were the press of a Liston knockout that some had in fact practiced the drive from the arena to the hospital, just so they could follow Clay as he was rushed to intensive care. Clay overcame a brief spell of blindness to out box an out of shape Liston, stopping the champion after six rounds. Clay had “shook up the world”. Injury would delay the rematch until May 1965. By then, Cassius Clay was no more; the heavyweight champion was now a member of the Nation of Islam and going by the name of Muhammad Ali.

Finding a venue for the rematch became a problem. Originally it had been set for Boston but growing concerns over the controversial backgrounds of both fighters led to Boston withdrawing its support for the fight. The scramble for a new venue is how this famous heavyweight title match between Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston wound up taking place in the small mill-town of Lewiston in the state of Maine. Tensions were high in the build up to the fight with the Nation of Islam and organized crime bosses connected to the fighters. There were multiple rumours of death threats against either fighter. As a result, the tiny arena contained only 2,434 fans with the rest of the 4,300 capacity being taken up by FBI, police and security personnel. Despite his victory in the first meeting, Ali was still considered the underdog. The Fight This fight would prove to be one of the shortest and most controversial title fights in boxing history. The first half of round one was uneventful with Ali dancing in clockwise circles around the ring while Liston plodded after him. However, with 1 minute and 43 seconds gone in the round, all hell broke loose.

Liston would once again lean in with his left jab but as he did so, Ali countered with a short right that landed on Liston’s temple. Liston appeared to go down in stages, his gloves touching down first then laying on his side before finally sprawling out flat on his back. Ali still pumped with adrenaline stood over the fallen Liston and roared at him to get up, a picture which has since become one of the most iconic sports photographs of all time. The fight then descended into a farce. Ali, in a frenzy, refused to retreat to a neutral corner. Referee, former champ Jersey Joe Walcott, struggled to maintain control of Ali and lost track of his count. Liston made it back to one knee before falling again to the canvas. Eventually, Liston made it to his feet and Walcott, who had completely lost track of his count, allowed the fighters to continue boxing before disappearing to confer with the ringside timekeeper. Whilst the time keeper was informing Walcott that Liston had in fact been counted out, both fighters were still going at it until eventually Walcott returned to declare the fight was over. Officially Ali was the winner by knockout.

Boos rang out around the tiny arena and cries of “FIX” echoed throughout. Aftermath Debate rages to this day as to whether Liston took a dive or not. According to his entourage, Ali himself was initially unsure as to whether he had even connected with the punch. Some ex-fighters in attendance including James “The Cinderella Man” Braddock and legendary Rocky Marciano believe the punch was genuine, others including heavyweight contender George Chuvalo claim it was a fix. The television pictures are inconclusive although they do suggest the punch certainly made contact. Theories abound as to what exactly happened. Having viewed the footage numerous times, my belief is that Liston’s initial reaction was genuine. He was caught on the temple and stumbled forward, off balance, not unlike Chris Arreola in his recent loss to Bermane Stiverne. However his reaction thereafter, the rolling to his back, getting back to his knees before falling again onto his back seems a little implausible. For whatever reason, Liston chose not get up before the count of ten and was deliberately counted out. But that’s just my opinion, feel free to check out the footage and make your own mind up.

It is impossible to sum up the career Ali would go on to enjoy both inside and out of the ring. He is perhaps the most iconic figure of the 20th century, maybe even of all time. It would be pointless of me to try and sum up a lifetime of achievement both inside and outside the ring in a few sentences. Instead I will focus on the less well known story, what happened to Sonny Liston? This loss would prove to be the end of Liston’s career at the top level of the sport. Liston was already deeply unpopular heading into the bout and the rumours of a fix only served to fuel the flames of disdain for Liston. In many ways, Liston is a tragic figure. Despite winning the heavyweight title, he never got the acclaim or public approval he desired. After his first victory over Floyd Patterson, Liston flew back to Philadelphia expecting a homecoming befitting his status as the champion. He was crushed to find nobody waiting to welcome him back with the belt. It was this disappointment that caused him to up sticks and move to Denver. His wife also gives us an insight into the sadder, more sensitive side of Liston.

Despite his reputation for being gruff, aggressive and mean, his wife claims that on becoming champion, Sonny asked her to teach him how to write “Best Regards, Sonny Liston” just so he could sign autographs for children. By 1970, Liston was had become a veteran stepping stone fighter and was scheduled to fight George Chuvalo in 1971. However, Liston’s body was discovered in his Las Vegas home on January 5th 1971. He had been dead for a number of days. Just like with his birth, his actual date of death is not known and police had to estimate a date for his death certificate. The cause of his death also remains a mystery. Although traces of heroin were found in his system, the amounts discovered were not considered lethal. This fact coupled with the absence of drug paraphernalia and Liston’s apparent fear of needles has led family and friends to question the official cause of death being recorded as a heroin overdose. Much like the result of the fight there are numerous theories as to how exactly Liston died and why. Unfortunately it seems tragically appropriate that Liston’s life should end in mystery.

We will never know exactly when he was born, we will never know exactly how or when he died and we will never know the full truth about that famous night in Lewiston, Maine. Michael McCarthy, Pundit Arena.

Question: Sonny Liston only made one successful defence of his world title who was it against
Answer: Floyd Patterson